Like this:

In fact, I woke up precisely 57 minutes later than I’m supposed to leave the house. This was not a good start to my day.

I opened my eyes, realised it was 7:57am and bolted upright in bed to utter my first word of the day;

“Shit!”

I promptly followed this with “shit shit shit” and “how the fuck did that happen?”; although why I didn’t just ‘think’ it is beyond me as my girlfriend had already gone to work at 5am and I was alone. There was no one there to appreciate my BAFTA winning performance of a guy who’s going to be seriously late for work.

But was I to blame? Well this is the weird part.

I checked the alarm settings on my clocks (yes, clocks; plural) and they were both set correctly. I thought that maybe I’d snoozed them to death, but they were still showing as having not actually ‘gone off’ yet, despite them being set for 6am and 6:05am. Strange.

Maybe fate has something in store for me today. Or maybe fate has prevented me from some disaster that would’ve befallen me had I followed my usual morning routine. Maybe the headline ‘commuter snaps and beats man to death with his own hands, repeatedly screaming “stop hitting yourself!”‘ will never get printed.

These are all things I pondered in the shower whilst I washed myself at speeds unmeasured by today’s technology. My arms were a virtual blur and the water was turning to a fine mist.

I was most annoyed when, whilst drying myself at the same speed and causing my towel to catch fire twice, I heard one of my Judas alarm clocks kick off from the bedroom.

You have got to be shitting me.

I managed to leave the house at 8:30am which was pretty good and briskly walked to the bus stop that would take me to the train station which would take me to the tube station that would get me to work.

I decided not to walk to my usual station this morning because it’s snowing, there are no direct trains after 8:44am and my new shoes are tearing my heels an new asshole each. So a bus into the main station in town it is.

Right now fate wasn’t impressing me.

The roads were gridlocked due to last minute car commuters and school runs, which meant that my bus was painfully late. If only there wasn’t one adult and one child per car we may have got moving a little quicker. The words ‘car pool’ came to mind. Mind you, so did ”common sense’ and ‘birth control’.

The bus finally arrived and it was packed solid with children screaming and crying, and these small pockets of adults ignoring them desperately (who I later learned are referred to as parents). In fact the only adults keeping an eye on the children were the non parents who had looks of trepidation and self righteous judgement in equal measures.

When one of these ‘parents’ decided to talk to their cherubs it was clear how much love they had for their offspring, particularly one woman who was missing a few teeth, some patches of hair, some brain cells and who was clearly a Spandau Ballet fan; “Oi Hadley! (yes, Hadley) Oi Hadley, will you and Jayden sit down and shut up!”.

Loving.

But for authenticity its important to point out that certain words were pronounced differently;
Down = pronounced Dayan
Shut = pronounced Shart

It was not only her, but her mother who basically looked like an older and fatter version, with a few more stains on her velour tracksuit…and a beard.

Usually this bus is so blissfully empty and quiet.

Fate was starting to piss me off.

I got to the station, boarded a train and prepared for the utter fuckwit that will inevitably sit opposite me.

It took three stops until he got on with a female friend. I knew it was just a friend because, well…he would only have women as friends if you know what I mean. He looked like a cross between Wally from ‘Where’s Wally?’ and Doctor Who himself Matt Smith. Add to this an extremely plummy voice and ridiculous little round glasses. He also talked really loud with his equally plummy ‘friend’ and was quite abrupt and intrusive in his questions and statements. I dont think he had any malice, he just didn’t have any etiquette filters. This was confirmed when he started going through her phone.

Maybe we should publish a new book called ‘Where’s Wanker?’. It would be quite easy though as he finds you.

Then suddenly she disappeared into a spare seat 3 rows in front of me, still shouting “fucking dickhead”, and “go back to where you got those scars you prick!”, although most of it is to herself as the guy had gone.

I felt sorry for the little timid woman she’d sat next to, whose eyes were firmly fixed, unblinking, to her kindle.

She then picked up her phone to call, who us sniggering commuters can assume was, her ‘home girl’

Here are a few choices from this side of her phone conversation (In a proper rudegirl gangsta girl stylee…at full volume)

“I should’ve put my heels to his knees.”

“Acting like some princess; what a c**t”

“Do you still think of me when you’re on the toilet?”

“He’s all up in my face like ‘oh you pushed me!’ like some chief yeah!”

“I ain’t playin’ man, I ain’t playin’!”

There were more but she was spouting them at such a speed in her gravelly ’40 a day’ voice that I couldn’t catch them all.

Now she’s sat there singing along to her iPod. Yep, singing. And still swearing under her breath.